On the Line: The Men of McI--Who Took on At&T, Risked Everything, and Won

Chronicles the initial establishment of MCI, the first major telecommunications network to successfully compete against the AT&T monopoly and eventually cause its government-induced dismemberment

This brisk, brightly written history of a company that is still fighting AT & T and others in the $40-billion long-distance telephone marketplace will appeal to those who enjoy entrepreneurial success stories. It is also a lucid explanation of what has happened to phone service in recent years. Based on interviews, the account begins in Joliet, Ill., in the 1960s, when Jack Goeken created MCI as a microwave relay system for truckers. Business writer Kahaner details the many legal, sales and other battles that gave rise to a company that now boasts 10,000 employees and some two million customers. While clearly an admirer of MCI chairman Bill McGowan and his unconventional managers, the author shows how luck, "manipulation" of the FCC and careful check-floating (in the mid-1970s, when MCI was $99 million in debt) helped the firm, which in the wake of AT & T's 1984 divestiture is now evolving into a "model" of the decentralized corporation of the 1980s, according to Kahaner. Photos not seen by PW. 50,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kahaner, a business journalist and the coauthor of The Phone Book ( LJ 7/83), has done an excellent job of chronicling MCI's battles against AT&T and the FCC to establish an alternative phone service. He organizes a vast amount of material into nine time periods, encompassing 1960 to 1984. The engrossing text reads like a novel, and Kahaner includes material from personal observations, taped interviews, and public documents. Recommended for both academic and public libraries. Mary Greene Havener, GenRad, Inc. Information Ctr., Concord, Mass.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.